Alloying is widely used as a means to fine-tune the properties of thermoelectric materials by reducing the lattice thermal conductivity. However, the effects of compositional variation on the lattice dynamics of alloy systems are not well understood, due in part to the difficulty of building realistic first-principles models of structurally-complex solid solutions. This work builds on our previous study of Sn n (S 1-x Se x ) m solid solutions (Gunn et al 2019 Chem. Mater. 31 3672) to explore the lattice dynamics of the Pnma Sn(S 1-x Se x ) system, which has been widely studied for potential thermoelectric applications. We find that the vibrational internal energy and entropy have a large quantitative impact on the mixing free energy and are likely to be particularly important in alloy systems with competing phases. The thermodynamically-averaged phonon dispersions and density of states curves show that alloying preserves the structure of the low-frequency bands of modes associated with the Sn sublattice but broadens the high-frequency chalcogen bands into a near-continuous spectrum at the 50/50 mixed composition. This results in a general reduction in the phonon mode group velocities and an increase in the number of energy-conserving scattering channels for heat-carrying low-frequency modes, which is consistent with the decrease in thermal conductivity observed in experimental measurements. Finally, we discuss some of the limitations of our first-principles modelling approach and propose methods to address these in future studies.OPEN ACCESS RECEIVED improving TE performance. In some cases the electronic and thermal transport can be almost completely decoupled [1], as in the 'phonon glass, electron crystal' concept [3]. All four parameters in equation (1) are implicit functions of temperature, requiring that materials are either optimised to produce a high peak ZT at a target operating temperature range or tuned to display a high ZT across a wide range of temperatures.Current flagship TE materials include PbTe, SnSe and Bi 2 Te 3 , all three of which display favourable electrical properties and intrinsically low thermal conductivity due to a combination of heavy elements and strongly anharmonic lattice dynamics [4][5][6]. However, PbTe and Bi 2 Te 3 are not suitable for widespread adoption due to the low abundance of Te, and there are also concerns with SnSe due to the environmental toxicity of Se. There has therefore been significant effort devoted to alternative systems including the more earth-abundant SnS [2] and metal oxides [7][8][9][10].Alloying is commonly used as a means to enhance thermoelectric performance, as a suitable choice of components can maintain or improve a favourable electronic structure while reducing k latt by introducing variation in atomic masses and chemical bond strength to promote stronger phonon scattering [11]. Pb(S, Se, Te), Sn(S, Se) and (Bi, Sb) 2 (Se, Te) 3 alloys have all been studied as thermoelectrics and the alloying shown to improve ZT [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Due to the r...